The Hymic Bloom—shorthanded as the Bloom—is a newly-emerged fatal affliction, affecting many of the unawakened all across Euldar. The affliction manifests painful unknowable runic markings in an almost floral script that proliferate across skin.

A subtle hymn plays in their minds day and night, turning many manic. In those rare enough to retain sanity, they find willingly present themselves to the gallows when the pain consumes their existence.

"No good. He's contracted the Bloom," the town healer said while shaking his head.

"Noo... no, no, no," Zayn whispered. He gripped his hands tight, and despite nails digging into flesh, he didn't wake up from this practical nightmare. "No! No way! I'm healthy!" He shouted.

"Sorry kid. Look, despite its reputation, you’ll manage. Most Bloomed enroll into Foxguard Academy, within eight months of diagnosis, explicitly for a cure. The crown assure a scholarship for all Bloomed." The healer held Zayn by the shoulders, stilling him. " In fact, if you graduate well, you’ll be comfortably set for life as a knight. You could say that the Bloom is the best thing to have happened to you. Discuss when you're leaving, with your guardian. The sooner, the better because the pain will only get worse from here onwards." He gestured to Zayn’s guardian, the only other adult with them in the room.

"Bu- but!" Zayn attempted to argue, as the patronizing fell flat.

"Thank you." Mr. Zimmer interrupted Zayn while shaking the healer’s hand firmly. He moved to the door, ready to go.

The healer turned back to Zayn. "Ah yes, it's best if you stay quiet about your, ahem- dear predicament," he said, half-squatting down at eye-level while ruffling the brat’s hair, before returning to his desk.

"Do as he says, child. Now come, better not tarry." Mr. Zimmer called.

"Yes, Mr. Zimmer," Zayn said obediently.

Together, they stepped out of the room, maneuvering out of the clinic's cramped halls and making their way back home at a languid pace.

Zayn dragged his feet the whole circuit back to Virgice Chalice, Hiraeth's local orphanage and his home for the past eight years since being left on its doorstep at age four. His mind was overwhelmed. It is a high ask of anybody—doubly so for a twelve-year-old—to acknowledge that they have contracted a deadly disease. Graciously, a cure is readily available at no cost for the Bloomed enrolling into the kingdom's Squire Academy, Foxguard.

Stopping by the orphanage's door, Zayn confided. "I prefer not to Mr. Zimmer." He tugged Mr. Zimmer’s shirt.

"You will go, and that is final. Do what is best for you." Mr. Zimmer admonished.

"I prefer not to Mr. Zimmer." He repeated Zayn, tugging harder in protest.

"The orphanage will not be procuring a cure, not even for you Zayn. You will go. Now rest and best not wander. Do I make myself clear?" Mr. Zimmer sternly said.

"Ye- yes, but Zephyr and Sofia died there…” Zayn muttered.

“Yes that is unfortunate. It was a training accident, for you have no need to worry.”

“Lara’s brother also stopped sending letters too…” He whispered while listlessly walking inside alone.

A few moments later, Mr. Zimmer turned and faced his right. There, manifested a vague figure consisting of almost imperceptible distortions, subtly rippling the air. "That child turned far earlier than expected, in fact, the earliest by a large margin. He'll do well for the kingdom."

"As you say, Sir." The figure said. "We'll make great allowances to ensure his delivery. The Aceometi have been seen in the vicinity, but they have no inkling of the seed."

"Good, the seed will be with you to the capital tonight. You are dismissed."

“As you wish, Sir.” The figure bowed and faded out of view.

Mr. Zimmer smiled. "Splendid, finally something worthwhile in this foul town."

***

High in the sky, Elysia hovered a new moon. Zayn stood under Elysia and took in its form as a sign of a hopeful new beginning, putting an optimistic smile on his face. The cover of dark made slinking through town from building to building appreciably a lot less conspicuous.

Zayn held strong reservations against going to Foxguard and was taking steps to avoid being forced there. 'If I'm cured, then I don't need to go. Hah, why didn't I think of that before! Heh, I'm a genius.’

Like all the kids before him that had gotten the Hymic Bloom, only going to Foxguard for a cure was the only apparent path forward. ‘Mr. Zimmer gives tough love right? And besides, the orphanage can’t afford any cures. But that's not going to be a problem, not for me. I’m going to buy a cure, all by myself!’

Before long, Zayn’s sneaking met him with the walls of the local apothecary. He drew his hands along them until he met the entrance. Then as determined as when he started the night, he entered the store.

The doorbell chimed with his entrance. "Who is it? We're close now!" A shout startled Zayn out of his sneak. A face perked up, into the illumination of the room, tentatively approaching him. "You there, we're closed. Out." The shop owner now fully in view, shooed Zayn out.

"Uh- Mister, can I-" Zayn said.

"No, no. Out." He pointed to the door. "Come back tomorrow."

"But-" A failed appeal again and suddenly he was out of the door, with the sound of it locking behind him.

Zayn kicking up road dust in frustration, silently seething. 'Things are all just going so wrong. So, so wrong! Why is nothing working out!'

"WHY?!" He shouted at the store, and there he saw it, displayed behind the enchanted glass front; a Nephentiode tincture. Just what he needed.

'2 Gold!' With some simple arithmetic, he figured that he would need to do tavern work for a month straight with 16-hour shifts for that much money. He clutched his coin pouch, containing all his meager money.

"2 silver, less than a hundredth of want I need, looks like I’ll to work more than just the occasional. I’ll need to think of something because the Raven Company’s merchant caravan to the capital is in just ten days." He lamented. Briefly, he clasped his pendant, his family’s heirloom, and an enchanted item despite how mundane it seemed. In a moment of weakness, he thought to trade it. "What am I thinking, I'd rather die…” He sighed.

The solution to his problem was so near, yet so far.

He turned to walk back home, absent-minded, not bothering to be inconspicuous. He strung on the calm of night; the subtle breeze brushing against his skin, the quiet whisper of townsfolk within their homes, the cool wafting into his bones. For him, melancholy hung in the air.

He breathed it all in, but he did not drown himself in these feelings. Simply opting to acknowledge the feelings and let them pass. He breathed a burning resolution anew. "Yosh! I can do this." He punched forward with new energy, imagining toppling the metaphorical walls entrapping him.

Crossing into the threshold of Virgice Chalice his thoughts moved to his pillow, it was a piece of heaven, and surely eager to greet his kiss. “Dearest pillow, I’m coming.”

With practiced ease, he moved into the orphanage in silence, dodging all the creaky floor panels. But different from his norm, he froze along the way, barely making halfway to bed.

“Find him. The boy must be in the town doing his foolish nightly escapades. You will be notified to take him away if he appears here, otherwise, proceed as planned. I want him gone tonight.”

“As you say, Sir.” A screeching voice said.

“The seed shows immense affinity. He managed to unwittingly break the locking enchantment to his room.”

Zayn’s spine chilled. Unprompted, he stepped step by step with full attention to silence made to the outdoors. He felt great trepidation from the exchange, as the words from Mr. Zimmer felt like a gut punch. Trusting his instincts despite not fully understanding what was happening, he sped along the shortest route to the forest.

‘Who- What was that other voice talking with Mr. Zimmer? Going to the capital at night, all of a sudden? Why? Why? Why? Why didn’t he tell me? I thought I had more time!’

He made passes through the darkest of alleyways, wary of being found by the sinister voice. With every skidding turn and bounce between walls, slightly more dread crept up on him, feeding into a wilder running imagination.

‘Maybe they see me? Are they waiting behind that corner? Or the next? Are they following me? Maybe behind me, snickering at my back? Huh?’

Arms emerged from the dark, Elysia’s ambient glow barely lighting them. They came at him from all directions. He ducked and wove between the encroaching hands, none of them finding purchase. He made headway unhindered.

Zayn ran his heart out; it boomed just shy of imploding within his chest. His single pair of footfalls echoed about in a desperate rhythm, from open space into the boundaries of the forest. Zayn broke into a sudden stop—his stomach tugged hard like a released taut bowstring—to paint the ground a novel collage of half-digested food bits. He coughed and harked up all he could— his bile, mucus, the afternoon’s bread, and soup, made for quite the artistic material—with a stomach now empty, having him dry heaving again and again. His throat burned. His eyes watered.

Still feeling eyes on him, as much as it pained him, he headed further into the forest panting as he regained lost momentum, hoping to lose the repulsive gaze.

The further ventured, the more sticks and stones poked through his sandals. In the panic, weeds, roots, and vines tangled him, constantly pulling sideways, tripping him. Scampering more than often not had him brushing against thorned bushes, adding more scrapes here and there. Adrenaline pumping in his veins numbed the pain, but only for so much.

Eventually, the pain caught up to him, hitting him all at once, like being dropped in hot lava. He stumbled hard—earning him a particularly large gash—and rolled intermittently to a stop into an eerily quiet clearing. Heavy breaths filled his ears. The gaze felt relievingly absent.

He felt safe and collapsed into his mind's abyss. That night, the sound of snoring danced about the clearing, easing its stifling quiet.

***

A new day, a new shining light. Early dawn graced the land with a blue metallic hue coloring the sky. Zayn had barely rested, but now awake, he refrained from sinking back into sleep. As harrowing as yesterday was, his enthusiasm was undeterred.

“Uh- uh- Ouch! Ou! Ugh! Damnit. Where am I?” He said while rubbing his face into wakefulness and breathing in the cool morning air.

Zayn took stock of his surroundings, discovering that he lounged in a verdant clearing with an iridescent oval at its center. The shape was as if scribbled irregular ovals constantly overlapping with one another, with their colors shifting along the spectrum of iridescence as if deep breathing. Complementing its visual effects—occupying the otherwise utterly silent ambiance—was a somehow perfectly syncing low-tuned hum.

Zayn was surprised. “A Rift,” he whispered in awe. He had always wanted to someday visit Rifts and maybe even explore the ruined worlds they contained. Many tales regal how Rifts are the place the best of adventurers are born. And like most children, he also held aspirations to one day write an epic of his own, of slaying villains and monsters like all the legendary heroes of old.

Just as those thoughts passed, the Rift took no more of his attention as he remembered the gist of yesterday. Warily he stood up and sought out signs of his journey, briefly entertaining the idea of returning the way he had come, but thought better of it.

‘Even before Zephyr, Sofia and many before them stopped writing back. I was happy they were so focused on the academy, too busy to write back, thinking that they’ll get to be knights. But I was wrong, only recently I found out they died from Lara’s brother’s last letter. And how he too stopped writing back home.’  

Apprehension filled him as he decided his next move. Zayn was going to acquire the much-needed Gold, only then would he return to town to buy the tincture, and cure himself. For now, he needed to avoid capture, so he’ll have to make do with what he had to earn Gold out of town.

Brushing away the dirt and debris stuck to his clothes he noticed that all his wounds had healed over. If he wasn’t standing in the middle of a forest, he would have concluded that yesterday’s events were but a fever dream.

“Works like a charm, always.”

His pendant was warm a sign of the enchantment working, clasping then kissing it he smiled brightly. ‘They’ve been keeping me safe this whole time with this…’ He tucked the magical artifact into his shirt.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let’s see if what people say about Rifts are true; about how riches await the brave who venture within its maws.” With that, he took steps towards the floating oval and stepped through.